Howdy Mars Hill Church.
Pastor Sutton Turner here and I'm in Ethiopia.
And I just want to thank Jesus
for continuing to use Mars Hill Church
to make disciples and plant churches.
Mars Hill Global is the arm of Mars Hill Church
that makes disciples
and plant churches all over the world.
We not only do church planting,
but we help better equip church planters.
Most recently we shipped and now distributed
1,000 bibles into Amharic,
which is the language here in Ethiopia.
And we launched a project
to translate Pastor Mark Driscoll's doctrine book into Spanish.
We have people from over 29 different countries
that are giving on a monthly basis to Mars Hill Global.
So whether you're a member
of one of our Mars Hill church locations
in the United States,
or you're 1 of 100,000 podcasters every single week,
we encourage you to pray
about giving above and beyond your tithe
to Mars Hill Global.
Thank you and let's see more materials translated,
more pastors sent out, more churches planted,
and more people saved by Jesus Christ.
Brotherhood, it's a bond as old as time.
It's a love that runs deep.
It's bold. It's strong.
It's enduring.
There's a trust that's built among brothers,
from the trials to the triumphs.
It's a trust that comes from living life together.
No one knows you like your brother.
He knows your strengths; he knows your weaknesses.
A bold brother will lay it all down for his family.
It is difficult to describe that kind of loyalty,
that kind of courage, that kind of strength.
It's the love of a brother.
It's that kind of love that compelled James to become
Jesus' bold little brother.
So what are you looking forward to,
hoping for, dreaming about?
See, the way life works is we have a vision of a future,
a hope, a dream, a longing,
and then we start to plan
so that we can have our life going in that direction.
And for some of you that's, "I want to graduate and finally
start to make some money to pay off those school loans."
For others of you, it's, "I'm single.
I'd like to get married."
For others of you, "We are married,
and we'd like to start having kids."
For some of you, it's time to buy a home.
It's time to pay off debt.
It's time to downsize 'cause you're empty nesters
and the kids have already grown.
For some of you, it's moving up in your career.
For others of you,
it's expanding and growing your company.
For some of you, your visions, your hopes, your goals,
your dreams, your longings, they're more relational.
It's reconnecting with people, reconciling with people.
I don't know what your vision is, but here's what happens:
We get a vision, a dream, a longing,
a hope, and then we start to plan for it.
And this is how you can know what's really important
in your life, the things that are most important
are the things that get a plan.
They get a plan.
And if you want to figure out how to put together a plan,
you start considering your options for counsel.
"Where am I gonna figure out how to organize my life
"and my energy and my time and my resources and my money
so that I could lean into that future hope that I have?"
And if we pursue the options set before us,
almost all of them are in the realm of business.
All the management, budgeting, scheduling, planning,
coaching is in the realm of business.
And what we do then is we tend to go to those areas and then
fish out some principles to help us get our life together
for the vision that we have for our tomorrow.
And as you do that, you'll find that some of the counsel
you'll get is really ungodly.
The principles are actually completely opposed to
a lot of the big ideas of Scripture.
Some of the counsel you'll get is "Godless,"
meaning it doesn't say anything negative about God.
It just doesn't say anything about God;
it's your life, your dreams, your hopes, your goals,
your vision for your destiny.
No reference to God at all.
Ecclesiastes calls this life under the sun as if there's
no one above the sun that we come from and give an answer to.
And some of the counsel you'll get is "God-light."
It's sort of best business practices and tips and tricks
with vague, general, spiritual references like,
"Don't overlook your soul.
Make sure to include your spiritual life."
Maybe a quote from a religious leader,
something of that nature.
And the result is that we can have a vision for our future,
and we can have plans that really don't include the Lord.
And it can happen very, very easily
and very, very subtly, and it's nothing new.
It's nothing new.
In fact, Pastor James in James 4:13-17,
this is exactly what he's talking about to his people
a few thousand years ago.
And he's talking about Jesus' life and your life,
and he's gonna talk about how to see your life.
And here's the problem: if you don't know where you come from,
if you don't know why you're here and you don't know
where you're going, you don't know what to do.
And subsequently, you don't know how to plan.
And so he's gonna address this, and he's gonna talk about life.
And the first thing he's gonna teach us is
that life is uncertain.
This is gonna be a super practical sermon.
Here's what Jesus' little brother James has to say:
James 4:13-16,
life is uncertain--
"Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow'"--
OK, so let me ask you,
what are you planning on doing tomorrow?
What do you have planned for the rest of the day?
What's your next week look like?
What's your next month look like?
What's your next year look like?
How far out do your plans go?
Question, is it a sin to have plans, yes or no?
No.
The Bible talks a lot about planning.
Proverbs talks a ton about how wise it is to seek good counsel
and make a wise plan.
Is it a problem to have a schedule and to have things
organized in advance, yes or no?
No.
It's why you're here.
You made it on time.
Congratulations, OK?
You had a plan and you executed it.
Welcome.
It's not a sin to have a vision.
It's not a sin to make a plan.
It's not a sin to be organized.
So what's the problem?
"Come now, you who say,
"'Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town
and spend a year there and trade and make a profit.'"
These are their business plans.
"Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring."
There's the issue.
We'll skip one little verse and come back to it
in just a moment.
He continues, "Instead you ought to say,
'If the Lord wills'"-- See what they have said is,
"We will do this."
And he's saying, "Well, what about the Lord?"
It'd be better to say, "If the Lord wills,
"we will live and do this or that.
"As it is, you boast in your arrogance.
All such boasting is evil."
The problem is not when we have a vision, hope, a dream, a plan;
the vision is when it doesn't include the Lord.
The problem is when it's out of arrogance and not humility;
it's seeking our will, not God's will.
That's the problem.
What he's talking about here is hubris,
and this can refer to any and every aspect of life, but here
he's speaking specifically in regards to business because
a lot of hubris tends to be connected to business.
A lot of boasting and promising and planning tends to be
in relation to business.
"Our company's gonna do this.
"And our portfolio's gonna do that.
And our stock is gonna perform at this level."
And he says, "Nobody knows the future.
That's sort of a big assumption, and it lacks humility,"
which means it lacks integrity.
But we can do this in any aspect of our life.
"Next year I'm gonna graduate.
"Next year I'm gonna get married.
"Next year I'm gonna get a job.
"Next year we're gonna start our family.
"Next year we're gonna pay off our debt.
Next year, next year, next year, next year."
And he says, "Be careful.
"Be careful.
You need to remember if the Lord wills."
And what he's really attacking here are two awful assumptions
and presumptions.
One is in regards to sovereignty;
the other is in regards to separation.
The problem here is that it is easy for us to behave or believe
as if we were sovereign over our lives and our future.
And if you find someone who's a visionary, leader, organized,
driver--I know a guy like this--
they can--we can--talk with great certainty.
"We're gonna do this, and we're gonna do that.
And it's gonna be like this, and it's gonna go like that."
And the impression can be given that you're sovereign,
that you're in charge, that you're all-knowing,
that you're in God's seat, that you see tomorrow
and you know exactly what tomorrow's gonna bring.
But we're not sovereign.
We don't know what the future holds.
This struck me early in ministry. There was a lovely,
young, godly couple.
They met at Mars Hill. They fell in love.
They loved Jesus.
They were planning their wedding.
He got cancer and died before they ever made it to the altar.
See, their vision for their future was, get married,
you know, start a family, grow old together.
But that's not what happened 'cause life is uncertain.
The issue of sovereignty and the issue of separation,
and what they've done here is they've separated their life.
They've separated their life into that which is secular
like work and that which is spiritual like church.
And what's secular is about facts like business
and government and law.
Well, what's secular--that's about faith, experiences,
your personal relationship with God--that doesn't affect
the rest of your life.
That which is secular is a public issue.
This is how you behave in business.
This is how you behave as a citizen.
But the spiritual, the faith--it's private.
It's internal; it's not external.
You don't share it with anyone.
It doesn't affect the rest of your life.
And what they've done is they've created a firewall in their life
between their relationship with God
and all of their other relationships.
Our culture has not moved from this fatal flaw.
Today people will say, "Well, that's religion,
"and it shouldn't affect business,
"and it shouldn't affect politics,
"and it shouldn't affect sexuality,
"and it shouldn't affect morality.
It should not be in the public arena."
And as a Christian we say, "No, this is an old problem.
"Our relationship with Jesus affects everything--
"how we do business, how we vote, how we behave,
"how we interact with others, how we see the world,
"how we spend our money, how we organize our days,
"what we consider our priorities because we're not sovereign--
Jesus is."
We don't know tomorrow; Jesus does.
And our life is not separated into things that involve Jesus
and things that don't.
As sovereign Lord, he rules over all of history, all the nations,
all the cultures, all the races, and all of our life.
And so what James is saying is, don't live your life
like an atheist while attending church,
and that's what they're doing.
Their language and their goal setting and their planning
is exactly the same as the atheists.
God doesn't factor into it at all, just predict the future,
best estimation, organizational alignment,
goal setting, and march forward.
James says, "It would be far better if you realized
these things will only happen if the Lord wills."
So how many of you are drivers-- you're active, you're planners,
you're get-stuff-done people?
OK, how many of you are like that?
OK, you're glad to raise your hand.
I gave you something to do. You're welcome, OK.
Is he saying, because you don't know tomorrow,
don't plan anything, don't pursue anything?
Is that what he's saying?
No.
He's saying, pursue it humbly.
Write it in pencil.
Put it not in a closed hand but in an open hand.
Otherwise you'll do this;
you'll make promises that you can't deliver on
because the Lord will change the future.
Now, how many of you are more passive, you're easygoing?
You're like, "Hey, the Lord is sovereign,
that's why I don't make a plan, I just trust him," OK?
And if you are married, I apologize--
and we have Redemption Groups for you guys.
Anyways, so let's say you're the more passive.
You're like, "You know what?
"Planning, writing things down, I trust the Lord.
He's got a plan. Glad one of us does."
OK, you're more that way.
How many of you are more that way?
OK, I'm gonna make you do something:
raise your hand, OK?
It's a start.
It's a humble start but at least we got you doing something.
OK, good job.
OK, for those of you who are like that,
does it say planning is bad?
Some of you will really be like, "Yay, an anti-planning verse,
"finally, a life verse for me.
"I don't need a schedule. I don't need a budget.
I don't need a plan. Yay."
That's not what it says.
What does it mean when he says,
"If we consider if the Lord wills,
if the Lord desires, if the Lord decrees"?
Now, truly this can be a Christian cliché, right?
Actually, this can be a Muslim cliché.
Lots of different religions, "Oh, if Allah wills,
if the Lord wills, if God wills,"
and it just gets thrown out there.
How many of you, there's somebody in your life that's
really religious and they'll just throw this out
all the time?
"Oh, Lord willing, Lord willing.
If the Lord wills."
You're at dinner and you're like,
"Hey, could you pass the salad?"
"Well, Lord willing I will pass the salad."
Well, you know, Lord willing, I won't stab you with a salad fork
for saying 'Lord willing.'
You don't need to say it all the time for everything, right?
'Cause it can become a Christian cliché,
and we don't need more Christian clichés.
The goal is not to have this, "the Lord wills,"
"if the Lord wills," "Lord willing" be a cliché but a conviction,
OK, a conviction.
And to say, "If the Lord wills," it is saying,
"I have sought the Lord and wise counsel,
"and I've prayed and planned.
"And I believe to the best of my understanding
"what I'm planning on doing is right
"in the sight of the Lord and what the Lord
"has for me to do, but I could be wrong.
"Therefore, the Lord is welcome to change my plans
"because his will overrides my will,
"and I trust that his will is glorious for him
and good for me."
What that allows for those of you who are more active
is humility.
For those of you who are passive,
it will allow you to have more confidence.
Some of us get ourselves in trouble saying,
"The Lord said let's do it,"
and then he changes the circumstances.
And you're stuck in a quandary.
It's like, "Well, do I lose credibility by saying
"that we're going to change the plan,
or do I march forward without the Lord?"
The way out of that is humility and to say,
"I believe this is best,
"and the Lord can change his plan for us.
"But as of now, this is what we're doing
and where we're going."
For those of you who are more passive,
you may lack confidence.
You may say, "I don't want to, you know,
"say the Lord told me, and I need to do this
"because I could be wrong.
"And I know that I make mistakes,
and sometimes I'm out of the Lord's will."
And you could say, "The Lord wills me to do this,
"and the Lord wills to change that,
perhaps, and when he does, I will yield to that."
What that allows you to have is more confidence
because you don't need to say, "I know exactly."
You say, "You know what?
"I think this is right and if it's not,
I'm inviting the Lord to redirect my steps."
More humility for the confident, more confidence for the humble
to proceed together into the will of God.
If the Lord wills, if the Lord wills.
His first principle is that life is uncertain.
His second is that life is brief.
We'll come back to this verse, James 4:14, the second half.
Here's the question--James is filled with
a lot of great questions.
Here's another one: What is your life?
What a question.
Where do you come from?
Do you know?
Where are you going?
Do you know?
Why are you here on earth?
Do you know?
What is your life?
What are you supposed to do with it?
Massive question.
And this is almost the entirety of philosophy,
orbits around various answers to this question.
Sir Arnold Toynbee is a great historian
and makes this amazing observation
that the Western world in which we live is, perhaps,
the first civilization that doesn't tell its citizens
why they exist.
We don't know.
We don't have an answer to this question.
How many of you didn't get this in school?
What Is Your Life 101.
What Is Your Life 201.
What Is Your Life 301.
Nobody knows.
We get confused.
We get disorganized. We get depressed.
We get overwhelmed. We get exhausted.
We get discouraged.
We get suicidal because we don't know the answer
to this question.
And once we answer this question,
that really helps answer all the other questions.
All the little questions, they orbit around the big question,
What is your life?
"For you are a"-- what's the word?
A mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.
Now, let me do a little bit of Bible work for you.
That question, what is your life?--
it really is the entirety of the book of Ecclesiastes.
The Bible has a genre of literature called
wisdom literature, and wisdom literature is really about
the very intense, personal, practical stuff of life.
Like, what do you do with your marriage relationships,
your dating relationships, your finances, your work, your kids,
your sexuality, your diet, your enemies?
Like what do you do with the stuff in your life
really practical?
In the Old Testament, this would be Ecclesiastes,
Song of Solomon, Job, Proverbs, wisdom literature.
There's far less wisdom literature in the New Testament.
James is wisdom literature-- reads a lot like Proverbs
or Ecclesiastes.
And the question that's posed in Ecclesiastes--
one of my favorite books of the Bible.
I've taught it twice at Mars Hill.
The question that Ecclesiastes considers
is this question: What is your life?
And here James is picking up a theme from Ecclesiastes,
a very important theme.
And James is here echoing.
He's a Bible teacher.
He's a Bible student.
In the book of Ecclesiastes, it starts with this word hebel.
It's a Hebrew word.
It appears about 38 times in the book of Ecclesiastes.
Ecclesiastes is about 12 chapters long.
Ecclesiastes is a book written by Solomon who was
the wisest man in the world, other than Jesus,
the richest man who's ever lived,
the most successful man who's ever lived.
And he lived his life filled with political conquest
and financial excess and, like, a thousand wives
and girlfriends and harems
and literally ships of gold and stables filled with horses.
It was unbelievable--people would travel
from around the world just for a few minutes
to ask him a question.
And at the end of his life as an older man,
he sits down to write Ecclesiastes,
and it's a book of remorse.
It's a book of regret.
It's a book of repentance.
And he's writing to those who are young,
and he's trying to discourage them from following
the life course that he did.
And he starts his book, Ecclesiastes,
with the word "hebel."
"Hebel, hebel," says the teacher, "everything is hebel."
And as I told you, 38 times it shows up in 12 chapters.
Life is hebel.
You say, "Well, what is that?"
He boils life down to one word.
Some of your translations will say "meaningless."
"Meaningless, meaningless, says the teacher,
everything is meaningless."
First existentialist nihilist, I guess.
Sounds like he lived in Seattle during the '90s
and played in a band.
Life doesn't have to be meaningless, but it can.
Some of your translations will say, "vanity."
"Vanity, vanity, life is vanity."
Life doesn't have to be lived in vain, but it can be.
You can have a wasted life instead of an invested life.
Others prefer this word, and I believe James gives us
a great clue for what life ultimately is.
That word "hebel"--it has a lot of meanings
because life is complex.
But ultimately, I believe James here gets
the best interpretation of that word "hebel."
What is life?
Life is a mist that appears for a little time
and then vanishes.
How many of you, as you get older,
it feels like time is moving faster?
It's true, right?
Remember when you were a little kid you'd have that crazy aunt
she'd come up and say, "Oh, you're getting so big.
It moves so fast."
You're like, "Why does she say that?"
And now you go up to little kids you're like,
"Oh, you're getting so big, and time moves so fast."
You're like, "Oh, my gosh.
I'm the crazy uncle, and I'm echoing my crazy aunt."
It does, right?
Because when you're little, you want time to go faster.
"I want to be done with this grade.
"I want to be graduated.
"I want to get my license.
"I want to start my career.
I want to get married. I want to--"
And then as you get older,
you're looking for the break in life.
Slow it down.
It's going too fast because life is a mist.
I'll give you an illustration of this:
For us, it's the beginning of baseball season.
We figured it out.
We've got about a hundred games for our three sons,
plus practices and our daughter runs track.
So about this time of year, Grace and I start
a side business that consists of air traffic controller
and cab company, OK?
Just trying to get everyone organized.
And so yesterday, 2 of the boys, Calvin, who's 12
and Gideon who's 8, they had their jamborees.
Gideon had two games, Calvin had two games,
and it was freezing out.
I mean only in Seattle do you have your first games
in 36-degree weather.
Most people call that spring skiing.
We call it "baseball season."
So I'm sitting at Gideon's game early in the morning,
and it's so cold out that I take a deep breath
and I breathe out.
What do I see?
I see the mist of my breath but just for a fleeting instance,
and then it's gone forever.
Your life is like that.
Later in the day, and we finished all of our games
and we came home and we're freezing--we started a fire.
That's what Gideon and I like to do.
It's our little routine on a cold day.
We chop wood.
We stack wood.
We put the paper underneath, Giddy loves to start the fire.
And then he'll blow on it.
What usually emerges is a puff of smoke.
And there it is, and then it's gone forever.
Your life is like that.
It's like that.
That's what he's saying.
That's what Ecclesiastes is declaring.
That's what the Holy Spirit wants us to be remembering,
that our life is like that.
When you're young, you don't really think about this.
I can still remember as a kid, I didn't think about death ever.
And then I was 10 years of age and my parents showed up
at my Boy Scout troop.
We were at a kid's house doing our Boy Scout whatever stuff,
and my mom and dad showed up early, which was very unusual.
And as they got out of the car, I could see my mom sobbing
and weeping and devastated, and my dad comforting her
and walking with her toward me.
And I could just tell, something's wrong.
And my mom said, "Grandpa George just died."
I love my grandpa with all my heart.
I would go to his house, we would eat caramel apples,
stay up late, and watch wrestling, right?
And then we'd work in his garage.
He'd teach me how to use a bandsaw and a router
and a tablesaw, and we'd build stuff.
He taught me how to ride a bike.
I love my Grandpa George.
I was 10.
I adored him, and he was gone.
He was gone forever.
I remember the first time I knew someone who was young that died--
a friend of mine, his sister died.
She was like 8 or 10 or something--little,
young, a child.
And I remember she died, and I went to the funeral.
And all I remember as a kid sitting in the funeral--
and I was still in elementary school at the time--
was just thinking you don't have to be old to die.
Young people can die, too.
That had never really entered my mind.
Recently Gideon has been asking me questions about heaven.
I don't know what's going on in his little mind,
but he's very intrigued by the kingdom of God
and eternal life.
We were driving to baseball practice the other day,
and he's in the backseat.
"Hey, dad."
"Yeah, buddy."
"How old will we be in heaven?"
"I don't know, man, good question."
I said, "I hope we're young so we can do stuff."
"Me too, that's for sure."
He asked me, he said, "Do you think your Grandpa George
and my Grandpa Gibb are hanging out right now with Jesus?"
"I don't know, Giddy, maybe so."
It's starting to dawn on Gideon even at the age of 8
that life is a mist that appears for a little time
and then vanishes.
You can take this one of two ways,
as a great discouragement
or a great encouragement
to not waste any time.
Everyone's going to die
and most die with a lot of regrets.
If you've had the honor of being with someone in their dying,
life gets very clear.
Here's what people don't say: "Bring me all my trophies.
"I want to see them one last time.
"Bring me my grade point average.
"Bring me my résumé.
"Bring me my performance review.
"Bring me the org chart one more time.
I just want to see where I fall in the pecking order."
Life gets very clear
when time is very short.
It's ultimately people and memories that matter,
and we take those with us to the kingdom of God.
There's a story that illustrates this.
A friend sent it to me.
I found it tremendously clarifying,
so I want to share it with you.
I'm gonna introduce you to two people in this story,
Ed and Floreen.
If the guys would be so kind, we'll show a photo of
Ed and Floreen.
Here's their story.
If you're married, this is where you hold hands.
If you don't want to hold hands with the person you're
married to, this is where you really need to hold hands.
If you're here with your child, you can hold their hand, too.
If you're engaged to be married,
you can hold hands.
Floreen and Ed's love story began more than 60 years ago
when the two met at a party.
When the young engineer went to Floreen's parents to ask for
her hand in marriage, they refused because the young woman
was recovering at that time from a horrific car accident which
claimed the life of her first husband whom she had married
only 3 months earlier.
OK, here's Floreen's story: She's young.
She's in love. She gets married.
Her and her husband have plans, and in a car crash,
he dies 3 months later.
Breathes his last breath, and life is a breath
that's here today and gone tomorrow.
Somehow this shaped Floreen--I don't want to read too much
into the story, but she planned her future to enjoy it.
The story continues.
But Ed was determined to be with Floreen
and would not take no for an answer declaring to
his future in-laws that he was willing to carry
his beloved in his arms every day.
The couple said, "I do" May 12, 1953,
and settled in Batavia, New York,
in a home designed by Mr. Hale.
The Hales have two surviving children, Renee and Ricky.
A third baby died in infancy.
Life is a mist here today, gone tomorrow.
Ed's greatest joy in life was pampering his wife
and spoiling her with little tokens of affection.
At a time when she worked as a telephone operator at
a local hospital, Ed would bring Floreen her dinner and dessert.
Ed did most of the grocery shopping for the house,
and every time he went to the store,
he picked up some sweet treat or flowers
for Floreen.
In the winter, Ed would clear his wife's car of snow
and warm it up for her to drive home from work earning him
the nickname Saint Edward from their relatives.
When Floreen's family and friends would tease her about
her adoring husband asking her what she would do without him,
Floreen would reply that he was not allowed to go before her.
After an active, full life, Mr. Hale was diagnosed with
kidney disease a little over 5 years ago requiring dialysis,
regular treatments.
He also suffered severe heart attacks and had diabetes,
but that didn't stop him from taking his wife out
almost every day.
Mrs. Hale, known for her irrepressible sense of humor,
chattiness, and a pension for colorful adornments,
also had a laundry list of ailments, from asthma
to heart disease.
Still she would dress up to go to the doctor, with Ed
always by her side.
Floreen's precarious health took a turn for the worst this
month when her lungs filled with fluid, landing her in a hospital
in grave condition.
At the same time, her husband was in Unity Hospital in Rochester
with kidney failure.
We were handed two death sentences.
Floreen's sister, Marlene DeCarlo told this blog.
The 83-year-old man, Ed, was semi-conscious
and appeared to be at death's door, but 2 days after his
wife's hospitalization, Ed woke up and told his daughter,
"I need to see Floreen."
See, Ed had a plan to take care of his wife
for the duration of her life.
That was his plan.
What followed next was a series of negotiations between
the hospitals in Rochester and Batavia helped along by
a social worker whose job it was to convince United
to admit Mr. Hale.
The Batavia Hospital agreed to accept the dying patient but
only if he was strong enough to make the 35-mile trip.
She's in the hospital dying.
He's in the hospital dying.
They've been together for 60 years,
and now they're separated by 35 miles.
Ed wakes up and is determined. His plan is to get to Floreen.
As if by miracle, Ed rallied sufficiently for
the short ambulance ride arriving at United
in the afternoon of February 6.
His sole request was to see Floreen.
The hospital prepared a room for the couple where the two beds
were pushed together so that they could lie next to
one another and hold hands as Floreen faded away.
You notice she's still got a bow in her hair?
She had a plan, too.
The 82-year-old woman was pronounced dead
the morning after Ed's arrival.
Ed made it there in time.
He got to walk his wife home.
Surrounded by dozens of friends and family,
her husband followed her a day later.
The most important day of your life is the last day.
There are enumerable things that could distract you
from living for that last day.
Do you know Jesus?
Have you confessed your sin to Jesus?
Have you received forgiveness and eternal life from Jesus?
Are you ready to stand before Jesus?
That's the most important thing.
You could go at any time, and you'll all go at some time.
What about the people and things in your life?
Are you allowing other people and things that may not even be
bad but are not best to take your time and life energy
from the people and things that really are most valuable,
that if right now you were told you have 48 hours to live,
what would come off of your schedule?
What would go out of your life?
What would be absolutely erased from your to-do list?
If the Lord wills, you'll live into your 80s,
but you don't know.
Pastor James says it's arrogance to have a sense of entitlement
and presumption, that the plan that we have is the plan
that God has.
We don't know.
See, we make our plans and we seek to make our plans his plans
for our life.
Life is uncertain.
Life is brief.
And as a result, Pastor James tells us in chapter 4, verse 17,
life should be urgent.
Life should be urgent, that unimportant things
should not crowd out important things.
So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it,
Pastor James says, for him, it is.
Here's what he's saying:
You don't know how much time you have.
You can't control the future.
Now, you can influence it.
If you eat better, maybe you'll live longer.
But you can't control the future.
What you can control are the decisions you make
starting right now.
And what he's saying is, if you know you're supposed to be
doing something and you're not doing that, that's sin.
And if you know you're not supposed to be doing something
and you're doing that, that's sin.
Some sins are clear.
They're for everybody.
No stealing. No adultery.
No murder.
Other sins are specific things that God has told you.
Not everybody needs to do this, but you do.
And if you don't, then you're in sin.
So there needs to be a sense of urgency.
Since I know what I'm supposed to do and I don't know how long
I have, I should be making that a priority and that needs to be
an urgent activity.
Then the question becomes, how do you know what is priority
and what should have a sense of urgency?
They make this really practical because there's nothing worse
than a theoretical life lesson.
Number one, we start with Scripture.
The Bible is very clear, don't do these things,
and here's some other things you need to do.
It's really clear.
So we start with the clarity of God's Word,
and if God's Word says to do something
and you're not doing it,
it says to not do something else and you're doing that,
then for you it's sin and you've got to make
some serious life changes.
And this happens so easy, friends.
People's pressure, expectation, demands, our disorganization,
our lack of prioritization-- it leads to, all of a sudden,
God's voice is distant and quiet and the voice of everyone
and everything else is near and loud.
We open the Scripture, say, "God, talk to me.
Help me know what you want me to do and not do."
And for me, this sets my priorities.
My first priority as a Christian--
walking with Jesus by his grace, becoming more like him.
My second priority is to love my wife.
Right, I've asked the Lord, "Let me be like Ed.
"Let me walk her home.
"Let me preach her funeral.
Let me tend to and care for Grace all the days of her life."
And I pray that God gives us many.
My third priority is our children.
There is no back-up plan.
If I'm not a good father, if I'm not present,
they don't have another dad.
They've got one, and he needs to do his job by God's grace.
My fourth priority is to be your pastor and to teach the Bible
and to love and serve the people of Mars Hill Church.
And what I found over the years and perhaps you found this
as well, is a lot of the things that get in the way
are not bad things.
They're good things, but they're not the best things.
Oftentimes the choice is not between good and evil
but good and best.
And you've only got so much time.
You've only got so much life energy,
and we don't know how much time we will have
or how much energy we will have.
And we can't be arrogant and presumptuous and say,
"As soon as I take care of all of these things,
then I'll get to the things that the Lord has for me,"
because he says, if the Lord wills,
you might wake up tomorrow.
You might.
If you do wake up tomorrow, you might be healthy tomorrow.
You might be and you might not.
We go to Scripture.
We go to godly counsel.
Proverbs talks a lot about seeking godly counsel.
Don't just make a plan for your life and then find people
who agree with you and declare them to be wise counsel.
Lots of people do that.
"They agree with me."
Start with wise counsel,
godly people that you will invite into your life
and entrust to your decision-making.
This could be godly parents, pastoral, ministry leadership,
people in your Community Group, people that you know that love
the Lord and they've got expertise in areas of life that
you need to grow in and so you pursue them and ask questions
and take notes and seek counsel.
And the Bible is very clear that the fool is the one
who's always right in their own eyes,
and the one who is wise is the one
who doesn't trust themselves entirely because sin causes
blindness, the Bible says, and we all have some sin
which means in certain areas, we're all blind.
And what looks clear to you looks clearly wrong to another,
and we invite them to help us to see what we don't see.
It comes from Scripture, godly counsel.
It comes from the conscience that God has given us,
God has placed within us as his image bearers.
A conscience, we just, "That doesn't feel right to me."
I'm not saying it's a sin for everybody,
but it's not something I'm OK with.
Need to abide by your conscience.
And fourthly, the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is God come to take up residence in you
to inform and empower your life as he did Jesus.
And Paul declares that the Holy Spirit
is the Spirit of wisdom.
What we're talking about here is wisdom and folly.
We're talking about a life that is to God's glory versus life
that is to your misery.
And the Holy Spirit will lead you and guide you
into truth and wisdom.
And so we avail ourselves to these and other resources
that God gives so that we can have some sense of clarity.
"God, what am I here to do?"
To answer that question that Pastor James asked,
"What is my life?
"What am I to do with my breath and my days and my dollars?
What am I to do, Lord?"
And then plan accordingly, openhanded, if the Lord wills.
And I'd like to close with Jesus.
James saw all of this played out in the life of Jesus.
So here's Jesus:
God becomes a man, lives his life.
Here's James front-row seat as the little brother of Jesus.
He gets to see what no one else gets to see.
There are years of Jesus' life that are not written down
or recorded.
No one knows what happened, but James does because he was there.
He saw Jesus make decisions.
And here's what's amazing you'll read in the Bible:
Jesus healed people.
But hear, hear me on this: he didn't heal everybody.
He healed these people, but not these people.
Why?
Why did he pick them and not them?
He saw Jesus, up until he was about 30,
work a job with their dad as a carpenter swinging a hammer.
Well, why 30 years?
Why not 35?
Why carpentry? Why not something else?
Why?
He was there to see Jesus was friends with these people,
and he wasn't friends with these people.
Jesus invited these people into his life,
and he didn't invite these people into his life.
He opened his ear to counsel from these people,
but he closed his ear to counsel from these people.
James saw all of this.
He cast demons out of these people, not those people.
He healed these people, not those people.
He fed these people, not those people.
Why? Why?
How does this work?
How did Jesus make his decisions?
How did he know, "I'm supposed to do this,
I'm not supposed to do that"?
And James was there, front-row seat to the life
of his big brother/creator, and he watched it all.
And here's what Jesus has to say about his life:
John 5:36, Jesus says this,
"The works that the Father has given me to accomplish,
the very works that I am doing."
This is a mind-blowing statement.
If you were to walk up to Jesus when he was on the earth
2,000 years ago roughly, "Why do you do this and not that?"
Because can we all agree, Jesus had a lot of options?
Could go into business, could go into politics,
could go into ministry, could get married, could be single,
could go live in this town, could go live in this country.
A lot of options.
And he didn't pursue them all.
He prayerfully, carefully selected a few things,
and that's all he did.
And if you were to walk up to Jesus if you were to ask him,
"How do you know what to do?"
He would say, "God the Father told me to do some things
"and that's all I'm doing.
"I'm not doing any less, and I'm not doing any more.
"Since I hear his voice, I'm not controlled and dominated by
the other voices telling me what to do."
OK, now hear me in this: you and I need to be very careful.
I'll let ya in on a little secret: you're not Jesus.
A little secret: he was perfect,
you are not perfect.
So we need to be very careful to say, "The Lord told me."
We need to be humble and say, "If the Lord wills."
But Jesus had a clear sense of exactly what he was to be doing,
and that's what he devoted his time and energy to.
Now, God became a man, his name is Jesus Christ,
but he welcomed upon himself certain limitations for a season
to identify with us.
So Jesus couldn't be everywhere.
He could only be in one place at one time.
Jesus, though he wasn't as eternal,
he had 24 hours a day/7 days a week
just like you and me.
Though God is all-powerful, during his life on the earth,
Jesus had limited life energy. That's why the Bible says he
often withdrew to lonely places to be alone with the Father.
He took a day off.
He took silence and solitude.
The Bible even says that Jesus took a nap.
And that nap was as worshipful as casting out a demon
or feeding a child because those were the works that the Father
had given him to do and some of the works was not working.
It's not like Jesus was glorifying the Father while
he was preaching and teaching and healing and feeding
and not glorifying the Father while he's doing carpentry,
taking a day off and napping.
All of those things were the things that the Father
had given him to do and he did them perfectly.
He did them submissively.
He did them joyfully.
See, the reason that you and I, we get burned out,
every extended and exhausted is we're doing things
that the Father didn't tell us to do,
and we're not doing some things that
the Father told us to do like take a nap, take a day off.
We can give the impression that we're busier than Jesus,
that we're more essential than Jesus.
He knew exactly what he was to be doing,
and that's all that he was doing,
and he didn't do anything else,
and he didn't do anything less.
And so he lives without any sin.
And then he goes to the cross and he substitutes himself,
and he dies in our place for our sins.
See, that day he could have been traveling.
He wasn't supposed to be traveling.
He could have been arguing.
He wasn't supposed to be arguing.
He could have been teaching a class.
He wasn't supposed to be teaching a class.
He was supposed to be atoning for the sin of the world.
That's what he was supposed to do that day.
And then he's on the cross.
Do you remember Jesus' final words?
"It is finished."
He did everything that he was supposed to do,
and he did it in about 33 years.
And he's the most important, influential,
impactful person in the history of the world because he knew
what he was supposed to be doing and that's all that he did.
And most of his life--90% of it--was spent not in ministry,
growing up as a kid, obeying his parents, swinging a hammer,
working with his dad.
Don't think that he was more glorifying to the Father
doing ministry than he was doing carpentry.
Both, both were glorifying to the Father and both
were the things that he was commissioned to do.
When you get up tomorrow and you go to work and you're sitting
in your cubicle, don't think, "Someday I will serve the Lord."
Say, "No, starting today, I will serve the Lord in the cubicle."
Jesus didn't start worshiping when he stopped hammering.
He was worshiping through hammering,
and then he was worshiping through preaching,
and it was always worshiping, and it was taking
what the Father had given him to do
and just doing that well by the grace that God gives.
Same is true for you and me.
I want to make this really practical.
There's Jesus' life.
Let me extract a few principles from Jesus' life for your life.
I want you to think about these.
I want you to consider these.
If you're married, I want you to discuss these.
If you're in a Community Group, I want you to share these.
If you're not in a Community Group,
this is where we do life together.
This is where we seek wise counsel.
Number one, what is the size of your plate?
I told you, Jesus only had so much time, so much energy,
could handle so many relationships, so much stress,
be in so many places.
There's limitations, and you and I have greater limitations
than he.
When I'm talking about your plate size,
I'm talking about your life capacity.
Some of you, your plate is a salad plate.
It's not that big.
You can't handle a lot.
Some of you, it's a dinner plate.
You can handle quite a bit.
Some of you it's a platter.
You can handle a lot.
No matter what, we're all finite.
We all have limitations.
There's only so much that you can do.
You need to know the size of your plate.
You need to accept the size of your plate.
If you're a dinner plate and you're married to a platter,
you need to give grace to one another.
"Why can't you do more?"
"Why do you have to do so much?"
You need to give a little grace to one another,
amen?
How many of you notice you married the opposite?
Two platters burn out if they don't give grace to one another.
Many of you are going to be married to someone who is
very different than you.
Some of you are married to someone who's just like you.
It's knowing who God made you to be,
who God made them to be in addition to your kids
and the capacity that God has entrusted to them,
and giving grace to one another.
Do you know the size of your plate?
Even in your friendships, do you know the size of their plate?
Do you realize that some people can't get as much done as other
people, and that doesn't mean that they're ungodly
or less spiritual or less valuable.
Number two, what should be taken off your plate
or what should you take off your plate?
What we tend to do, many of us, we tend to just keep putting
stuff on our plate.
"Yes, I'll do this.
And yes, I'll do that."
And then somebody comes along and they're like,
"I don't want to deal with this, you deal with it."
And then they start throwing everything on your plate.
And if you're the responsible one
or you have fear-of-man issues
or you're worried about if other people will like you
or respect you or reject you or maybe hurt you,
then all of a sudden, "OK, throw it on my plate."
Then your plate's stacked up, and you're burdened under it,
and things start falling off your plate,
and then you're frantic and you're depressed,
and you're anxious because you can't keep up with your life.
So you have got to take some stuff off your plate.
Jesus did carpentry for about 30 years
and then he stopped doing carpentry.
Say, "Well, was that wrong for him to do carpentry?"
No, he was supposed to do carpentry for a while
and then not anymore.
Sometimes your kids are little.
It's a season of life.
You're gonna work this job for a while
then work that job for a while.
Whatever the case may be.
Maybe there were things that you had time and energy for,
and now you don't and they have to come off your plate.
I'm jealous for your life.
I'm your pastor; I love you.
I want to give you permission to take some stuff off your plate
wisely, carefully, prudently.
Don't just go home and, you know, Cc everybody, you know?
"I'm buying a hammock and good luck with everything," right?
There's wisdom in even how to get out of some obligations
and responsibilities, but you have a right to take
some things off your plate.
And then thirdly, what should you put on your plate?
"I've been neglecting that for a long time.
"That relationship, I've not invested in.
"I've not had time for church or Bible reading or prayer
"or Community Group, serving.
"I've not opened my--I keep telling myself, man,
"as soon as I get through this, then I'll have time for that.
"But it never comes, so I need to start with my priorities
"and God's priorities for me.
"And I need to put the most important things in my life,
"in my energy, in my budget, in my schedule first,
"the people and things that matter the most.
"And then entrust God to help me discern what else I can handle
and what I can't."
What is your life?
Friends, it's a mist.
It's here today and it's gone tomorrow.
And here's the good news, we're alive.
We have an opportunity to examine the life
that God has entrusted to us,
to make some course corrections and changes
so that we don't live in such a way that the last day is
a regrettable, remorseful day, but it's a rejoicing day.
That's what I want for you.
I don't want you to be discouraged but encouraged.
I don't want you to just regret the things you haven't done,
but I want you to celebrate the things that are yet to be done.
And to prepare for that, we're gonna respond.
So don't--and I know immediately some of you are like,
"Can I check my phone? Can I leave now?"
No.
Take some time as we collect our tithes and offerings to let
the Holy Spirit bring into your understanding
the specific things that you need to be prayerfully,
carefully considering, the changes you need to be making,
the wisdom you need to be seeking.
We're then going to partake of Communion, which is remembering
that Jesus did it all, that he lived without sin,
the life we've not lived,
that he died for our sin, the death we should have died,
that he rose to give the gift we cannot earn,
that ultimately, the Lord Jesus knew exactly what he was to do,
and he absolutely did exactly what he was sent to do.
And in Communion, we remember that he did that for us.
And he helps us, and he loves us, and he sends the Spirit
to enable us to follow in his example.
And then we're going to sing and celebrate.
We're going to take some time to remember Jesus,
to reflect on Jesus, to rejoice in Jesus, right,
to consider that there is life above the sun,
that there is life after the grave,
and that the Lord Jesus,
right now he's still doing exactly what the Father
has asked him to do.
He's hearing our prayers.
He's forgiving our sin.
He's helping. He's seeking.
He's serving. He's saving.
It's not that Jesus' work came to an end with his ascension
back into heaven, but he's still working and part of his work
right now is, he wants to love you.
He wants to forgive you.
He wants to speak to you.
He wants to encourage you.
He wants to help you.
And so we meet with him in song.
Lord Jesus, thank you for the opportunity to teach
the Bible at Mars Hill Church.
Lord Jesus, my life is filled with a lot of wonderful things,
but I thank you that teaching the Bible is something
that I enjoy every week.
And I thank you, Lord, that the Scriptures,
particularly this week, it's not just for the people.
It's also for the pastor.
It's really helpful and clarifying and hope giving
and future igniting, Lord God.
There are people that are going to hear this.
I pray that very quickly, you would turn their regrets
to rejoicing, that perhaps what was is sad,
but it doesn't have to be what is.
And Lord, I thank you so much that because of the Scriptures
we know where we come from.
We come from God.
We know where we're going.
We're going to stand face to face with God.
And we know why we're here.
We're here to learn about God.
We're here to become more like God.
We're here to be saved by God.
We're here to point others to God.
And Lord Jesus, thank you for being our God.
Amen.
Pastor Sutton here,
we've just finished our services here in the Bellevue church
and really excited today to tell the extended family of Mars Hill Global
about Text to Give.
Just came out and many of you know my story:
2007 heard Pastor Mark at a pastor's conference
went there, started podcasting.
I still gave my tithe to my local church,
however, gave a contribution amount to Mars Hill Church.
So this Text to Give, the video that we have produced for you,
you're going to love, so check this out.
Hey Mars Hill, my name is Rene and I work here
at the Media and Communications team at Mars Hill Church.
If you're a mobile user like me,
I've got some exciting news to share with you.
There's a new way to give at Mars Hill Church
and it's just as easy as sending a text.
Now, many of you take advantage of our online giving options,
which is a great way to set up recurring gifts,
but until now, we haven't had a way to set up mobile,
where you can give on the spot during our services.
If you're like me, you don't carry cash
you don't carry a checkbook, so Text to Give is the way to go.
It's fun, it's simple, and best of all, it's secure.
I want you to do something with me.
Take out your smart phone right now;
we're going to do something together.
Don't worry, you're not obligated to give,
but try this out.
Simply send the amount you want to give
and the word "Mars Hill" at the end to the following number: 45777.
The first time you give via text,
you will be asked to fill out a one-time form,
which will safely link your card to your smart phone.
Now, this new way of giving doesn't go into your phone bill,
and in case you make a mistake,
you can always get a refund for the gift that you've given.
And that's it; you're done.
You'll receive a text back confirming your gift
and from this moment forward, you'll be able to give
anywhere, anytime with just a single text.
Don't forget to save the number in your contact list.
I've saved it as "Mars Hill Text to Give."
For more information about our giving options
you can visit marshill.com/give.
Each year, over 10 million Mars Hill church sermons
are downloaded worldwide for free.
This ministry is generously supported
by Mars Hill church members and listeners like you.
If you'd like to support our efforts to preach Jesus to the world,
Please consider making a tax-deductible donation
by visiting marshill.com/give.